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From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Subject: Re: When is a simulation of an X an X?
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References: <D2yqLF.AM6@metronet.com> <Pine.HPP.3.91.950127181756.4921B-100000@acg60.wfunet.wfu.edu> <jqbD33zHo.2EB@netcom.com>
Date: Sun, 29 Jan 1995 19:34:04 GMT
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In article <jqbD33zHo.2EB@netcom.com> jqb@netcom.com (Jim Balter) writes:
>In article <Pine.HPP.3.91.950127181756.4921B-100000@acg60.wfunet.wfu.edu>,
>helen ruth etters  <etters@wfu.edu> wrote:

>>I suggest that the thread in question does not lead so easily out of the 
>>labyrinth. A fake Rembrandt is a simulation of a Rembrandt, but even if 
>>an observer had no independent method of determining its inauthentic 
>>status, it still is not a Rembrandt.
>
>You propose that there are no grounds for denying that it is a Rembrandt,
>yet you claim is that it is not a Rembrandt.  On what grounds?
>
>It seems to me that an epistemology in which a Y is considered to be an X
>when it is indistinguishable from an X is quite workable as long as one
>does not become so committed to an identity that one ignores distinctions
>in order to maintain it [...]
>
>Of course, a whole host of issues is being ignored here.  Is a Rembrandt with
>the paint faded half away a Rembrandt?  Is a restored Rembrandt a Rembrandt?
>Would a process that lifted the paint off a Rembrandt canvas and deposited it,
>in exactly the same configuration on another canvas, produce a Rembrandt?
>{...]

>As so often happens, we have a misunderstanding of the nature of language
>parading as some other philosophical problem.

Which misunderstanding do you have in mind?

-- jd


